The present invention relates generally to vending machines, particularly to coin-fed vending machines, and specifically to vending machines offering entertainment such as with the coin performing aerobatics after it is fed into the machine.
A gumball machine may be more profitable if the machine provides entertainment as well as a gumball. For example, one popular gumball machine includes a long spiral track from the gumball container to the gumball outlet so that the customer may be entertained by the gumball traveling the long spiral track. Unfortunately, such a gumball machine is problematic. One problem is that the relatively long track is difficult to clean. Another problem is that nonspherical or packaged articles are difficult if not impossible to dispense in a rolling manner down the spiral track. Hence, such a machine is limited perhaps to a round article such as the gumball or jawbreaker. Still another problem is that the gumball or other round candy is relatively light and thus fails to gather speed of a sufficiently great rate so as to be of sufficient entertainment value.